External links
- Website for The Mississippi Rag
- Website for Shawnee Press
- Hawley Ades Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2007)
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Hawley Ades was an American choral arranger, born in Wichita, Kansas on June 25, 1908. He died March 26, 2008, at the age of 99, three months shy of his 100th birthday. [1] He was the son of two professional musicians; choral director Lucius Ades, and concert pianist and teacher Mary Findley Ades.
Hawley Ades graduated from Rutgers College in 1929. He was hired as a staff arranger for Irving Berlin's publishing company, where from 1932 to 1936 he made hundreds of stock arrangements for the leading dance bands of the day, including special arrangements for Raymond Scott and Paul Whiteman.
In 1937, he was hired as a choral arranger for Fred Waring's very popular group, The Pennsylvanians, and was a mainstay for the next 38 years. Fred Waring often introduced Ades on concert tours by saying that "more people play and sing his arrangements than those of any other arranger in history.”
He became one of the most prolific choral arrangers of the 20th Century. His arrangements - published by Waring's Shawnee Press - are still very popular throughout the US, especially with high school and community choirs.
In 1966, Ades authored the textbook “Choral Arranging” [2] - a standard in the field. He retired from the Waring organization in 1975, but continued to write and analyze music almost to his death.
One of his last known arrangements was for lifelong family friend and professional musician and composer Roger Rossi. Mr. Rossi remembers, “Hawley Ades and I were friends for fifty-five years. We both took piano lessons from his mother, Mary Findley Ades. I’ve had a warm and lasting friendship with his entire family. Naturally, upon completing my Ave Maria, I sent it to Hawley." Rossi went on to say that Ades' quickly replied, "the piece is absolutely beautiful, and I’d like to write an SATB arrangement for it." To that Rossi stated, "I was shocked he’d do that. While still mentally sharp, he was 95 years old, and half blind! He had to use a magnifying aid to see his notes while scoring. Gradually, note-by-note he plodded away until it was done. It was a chore that exemplified the man’s great work ethics, congeniality, and talents all the way through to his later years. He did it for me, and I’m so proud of him. Unfortunately, he never heard his own arrangement. I’m sure he would’ve been thrilled like I was. The world is a better place now, because Hawley Ades was here.” [3]
Hawley Ades nephew, author Tom Moreland, a lawyer in New York City, wrote two printed articles in The Mississippi Rag titled "Hawley Ades: Musical Memories - I and II" (August and September 2008).
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Benjamin Robertson Harney was an American songwriter, entertainer, and pioneer of ragtime music. His 1896 composition "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down" is the second ragtime composition to be published and the first ragtime hit to reach the mainstream. The first Ragtime composition published was La Pas Ma La written by Ernest Hogan in 1895. It has been disputed by many historians on whether or not, "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down" was release in late 1895 or early 1896. On the front cover of "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", its listed as being copyrighted on 1895. However on the first page, its listed as being copyrighted in 1896. During the early years of Harney's career, he falsely promoted himself as being the inventor of ragtime and never acknowledged the genre's black origin. Many contemporary musicians criticized him for it. Although ragtime is now probably more associated with Scott Joplin, in 1924 The New York Times wrote that Ben Harney "Probably did more to popularize ragtime than any other person." Time magazine called him "Ragtime's Father" in 1938.
Felix A. Pappalardi Jr. was an American music producer, songwriter, vocalist, and bassist. He is best known as the bassist and co-lead vocalist of the band Mountain, whose song "Mississippi Queen" peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has become a classic rock radio staple. Originating in the eclectic music scene in New York's Greenwich Village, he became closely attached to the British power trio Cream, writing, arranging, and producing for their second album Disraeli Gears. As a producer for Atlantic Records, he worked on several projects with guitarist Leslie West; in 1969 their partnership evolved into the band Mountain. The band lasted less than five years, but their work influenced the first generation of heavy metal and hard rock music. Pappalardi continued to work as a producer, session musician, and songwriter until he was shot and killed by his wife Gail Collins in 1983.
Nelson Smock Riddle Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s. He worked with many vocalists at Capitol Records, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney and Keely Smith. He scored and arranged music for many films and television shows, earning an Academy Award and three Grammy Awards. He found commercial and critical success with a new generation in the 1980s, in a trio of Platinum albums with Linda Ronstadt.
Fredrick Malcolm Waring Sr. was an American musician, bandleader, and radio and television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing". He was also a promoter, financial backer and eponym of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric blender on the market.
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about music. As a composer he was prolific: the list of his works totals more than 700, mostly compositions of his own, but a substantial minority of orchestrations and arrangements of other composers' works. Those whose music he orchestrated range from William Byrd to Edward Elgar to Noël Coward.
"Bring the Boys Back Home" is a song from the Pink Floyd album, The Wall. The song was released as a B-side on the single, "When the Tigers Broke Free".
Russell Garcia, QSM was an American composer and arranger who wrote a wide variety of music for screen, stage and broadcast.
Sidney Torch MBE was a British pianist, cinema organist, conductor, orchestral arranger and a composer of light music.
Harry Moses Simeone was an American music arranger, conductor and composer who popularized the Christmas song "The Little Drummer Boy", for which he received co-writing credit.
Shawnee Press, Inc., was an independent print and recorded music publisher and for a time, the largest educational music publisher in the world. The Company published several music types including choral, vocal, keyboard, handbell, instrumental, and classroom in a variety of styles. The Company added sacred music offerings with the acquisition of Harold Flammer, Inc., followed by launching GlorySound, an imprint targeted to the growing contemporary Christian market.
Philip Lawson is a Grammy award-winning British composer and arranger, mostly of a cappella and sacred music. For 18 years he was a baritone with the King's Singers and the group's principal arranger for the last fifteen years of that period. In 2009 the group's album "Simple Gifts", on which Lawson arranged 10 out of 15 tracks, won the Grammy award for "Best Classical Crossover Album". In February 2012, he left the King's Singers to concentrate on his writing career.
Davide Rossi is an Italian violinist, string arranger, orchestrator, songwriter, composer and conductor, perhaps best known for having been the electric violinist and multi-instrumentalist for the British electronic music duo Goldfrapp from 2000 until 2013, and for his large contribution of electric violin parts and for most of the string arrangements on all Coldplay's albums since Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends,.
The Weavers at Carnegie Hall (1957) is the second album by the Weavers. The concert was recorded live at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Christmas Eve 1955. At the time the concert was a comeback for the group following the inclusion of the group on the entertainment industry blacklist. The album peaked at number 24 on the Billboard Top 200 in 1961.
Dale Warland is an American conductor, composer, founder of the Grammy-nominated Dale Warland Singers, scholar, teacher, choral consultant, and renowned champion of contemporary choral composers. Warland is one of only two choral conductors inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.
Robert Houston Bright was a composer of American music, known primarily for his choral works. The best-known of these is an original spiritual "I Hear a Voice A-Prayin'," but he wrote dozens of highly regarded pieces over the course of his career, including a number of instrumental compositions. Bright was, among his peers, well known and respected as a composer, choral director, and professor. He spent his entire academic career in the Music Department of West Texas State College.
Roger Rossi is an American pianist, accompanist, vocalist, bandleader, published author and composer born Roger Rossitto, in Brooklyn, New York. He is the son of concert violinist Vincent Rossitto, who graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Bellini in Palermo, Sicily and performed on many of the great stages of Italy including Teatro Massimo.
Victor Schoen was an American bandleader, arranger, and composer whose career spanned from the 1930s until his death in 2000. He furnished music for some of the most successful persons in show business including Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Les Brown, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, George Shearing, Jimmie Lunceford, Ray McKinley, Benny Carter, Louis Prima, Russ Morgan, Guy Lombardo, Carmen Cavallaro, Carmen Miranda, Gordon Jenkins, Joe Venuti, Victor Young, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, and his own The Vic Schoen Orchestra.
Gertrud Rittmann was a German Jewish composer, musical director, arranger and orchestrator who lived and worked for much of her life in the United States. Her career particularly flourished with major successes in Broadway theater.
Symphonic Legends – Music from Nintendo was a symphonic tribute concert held in Cologne, Germany on 23 September 2010 by the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, featuring video game music from Japanese game developer Nintendo. The concert featured symphonic arrangements found in some of Nintendo's biggest game series, such as Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Pikmin, F-Zero and Donkey Kong. The concert was produced and directed by Thomas Böcker, with arrangements provided by Finnish composers and musicians Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo, as well as Japanese game music composers Masashi Hamauzu, Hayato Matsuo, Shiro Hamaguchi and German film composer Torsten Rasch.
Symphonic Odysseys: Tribute to Nobuo Uematsu was a symphonic tribute concert first held in Cologne, Germany on July 9, 2011 at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall. The concert exclusively paid homage to the work of Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu and featured music selected from his works as a video game music composer. Among the games featured were Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Last Story, King's Knight, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Legend, and selected works from the Final Fantasy series. The concert was produced and directed by Thomas Böcker, with arrangements provided by Finnish composer and musician Jonne Valtonen, along with Roger Wanamo, Masashi Hamauzu, and Jani Laaksonen. The concert was performed by the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln and the WDR Radio Choir Cologne under conduction from Arnie Roth, with guest performers Benyamin Nuss and Juraj Čižmarovič joining the orchestra. A video recording of Symphonic Odysseys was streamed live online. The concert was initially scheduled for a single performance, but after selling out within twelve hours a second concert was added prior in the same day in Cologne. This too sold out, resulting in a total attendance of over 4000.
